As governments increasingly require large companies to disclose their environmental and social impacts, standards developed by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) are emerging as the global baseline for corporate reporting. Jurisdictions including Singapore, Japan and Australia have already incorporated them into climate disclosure requirements.
The rise of ISSB as the leading global standard for investor-focused reporting has raised questions about the future role of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the oldest and still most widely used sustainability reporting framework.
Companies in more than 100 countries use GRI to report their impacts and respond to the expectations of stakeholders beyond investors. But as reporting-fatigued businesses push for greater harmonisation between standards, uncertainty has grown over the role of the 29-year-old, Amsterdam-based non-profit. Where does GRI fit now?
Robin Hodess took over as GRI’s chief executive in 2024, after holding senior leadership roles at organisations including the anti-corruption group Transparency International, with a mandate to steer the organisation through this new era.
She says that GRI is as “relevant as ever”, and points out that ISSB and GRI serve different purposes — and are complementary. ISSB is focused on an organisation’s long term financial survival, whereas GRI examines how the organisation impacts the world.
“The space we helped build around sustainability reporting, with a focus on impacts, is complemented by the addition of financial materiality and reporting on the enterprise value implications of sustainability,” Hodess told Eco-Business in an interview on the sidelines of the Ecosperity summit in May.
While she does not rule out further consolidation, Hodess believes the future of corporate reporting lies not in competition between frameworks, but in greater alignment and interoperability.
Even though some jurisdictions have delayed mandatory reporting regimes as sustainability has slipped down the priorities list, Hodess says GRI has not seen a decline in the number of companies that use the framework, adding that four out of five of the largest companies report using GRI globally.
In this interview, the Berlin-based chief executive also addresses questions about advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that are reshaping how sustainability data is produced and analysed, and argues that — despite ongoing pressure for market consolidation — companies are unlikely to be reporting less sustainability information any time soon.
In an era of consolidation of sustainability reporting frameworks, when ISSB has emerged as the predominant standard, is GRI still relevant?
GRI is as relevant as ever. GRI and ISSB are complementary. The space we helped build around sustainability reporting, with a focus on impacts, is complemented by the addition of financial materiality and reporting on the enterprise value implications of sustainability. Together, this creates a more holistic picture of impacts, risks and opportunities. That’s how investors — particularly medium- to long-term investors — and companies planning for long-term growth need to think about business development and financing. Understanding impacts helps them anticipate the risks and opportunities that are likely to affect the enterprise.
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The space we helped build around sustainability reporting, with a focus on impacts, is complemented by the addition of financial materiality and reporting on the enterprise value implications of sustainability.
Companies often complain about reporting fatigue and want to see consolidation in the market sooner — why hasn’t this happened?
The market is pushing for greater consolidation, but not everyone is moving in the same direction or at the same pace. We hear the demand from our stakeholders, but we also serve a broad range of stakeholders, so we need to ensure their interests remain closely aligned with our mission.
GRI is a nonprofit developing standards in the public interest. That means every step we take has to be mission-driven and preserve the value and purpose of impact reporting. If, in the future, there are opportunities to advance that mission through different structures or deeper collaboration with others, and the right conditions and resources are in place, that could be a positive development.
In the meantime, GRI will continue to champion the role of impact reporting within the sustainability reporting ecosystem. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce reporting fatigue and create reporting that is effective, user-centric and useful for decision-making. But we’re not going to go backwards on reporting. Companies are not going to be reporting less in the future — because there is a general shift towards more regulation and mandatory reporting.
Do you think we’re likely to see more consolidation in the sustainability reporting landscape, whether through mergers or greater alignment among standards and frameworks?
I think the priority is less about organisational consolidation and more about consolidating the value proposition of the different parts of the system. We need to make sure the various standards and frameworks reinforce one another and have clearly defined roles.
Our mission remains impact reporting, which complements the growing focus on financial materiality. A key step has been our collaboration with the [financial reporting standard-setter] IFRS Foundation, but it’s equally important to work closely with partners such as Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) and others that are advancing ambition in specific areas.
A red panda in a forest within Sichuan province in China, one of the most biologically diverse countries on the planet. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) have been working together for an interoperable framework for companies to report on their nature and biodiversity impacts. Image: OndrejProsicky via Deposit Photos.
Take nature, for example. Our biodiversity standard came into effect in January and is the first of its kind. We believe it is fully aligned with the TNFD framework. That’s the kind of alignment the market needs. In that sense, we’re already seeing partnerships create a degree of consolidation through greater coherence and interoperability.
One area where this is particularly important is sector standards. Companies and investors increasingly want to benchmark performance against peers in the same industry. As the IFRS Foundation and ISSB continue to enhance the SASB [Sustainability Accounting Standards Board] Standards [which focuses more on disclosing financial risks], it makes sense for us to coordinate closely on sector-specific work. Doing so will help demonstrate the coherence and complementarity between GRI’s sector standards and the SASB framework, making the overall reporting landscape clearer and more useful for the market.
We’ve seen delays to mandatory reporting regimes in some jurisdictions such as Singapore and the European Union as governments wobble over disclosure deadlines. Hasn’t that slowed the growth in uptake of GRI standards?
No, actually we’ve seen reporting numbers continue to grow. It has been a go-to framework for many of the world’s largest companies, including in Singapore. I believe all SGX-listed companies are reporting on sustainability, and globally around four out of five of the largest companies report using GRI.
So, we haven’t seen reporting numbers fall at all. What we’ve probably seen instead is an adjustment following the build-up to new reporting requirements. We saw a similar effect in Europe when the decision was made to simplify the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). That had knock-on effects for sustainability teams and the advisory services that support them.
What evidence is there that disclosure can change corporate behaviour?
I think it goes back to a theory of change and a very basic principle: what you commit to and what you’re accountable for help drive behaviour. And, of course, what you don’t measure, you can’t manage.
We see a strong correlation across a number of studies showing that reporting on impacts is associated with better financial performance. We have to assume that this not only supports continued commitment to sustainability reporting, but also creates pressure to deliver on climate, nature and social targets.
We need to see that confluence between doing good and performing well, because that’s what ultimately helps drive behaviour change. There is rightly a great deal of pressure today to green the economy, and the more we can link access to capital and business opportunities to strong sustainability performance — not just disclosure, but actual performance informed by good data — the more we will drive meaningful action.
Reporting alone is not the goal. The goal is better decision-making and better outcomes, and reporting provides the information needed to manage performance and deliver results.
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I see AI as both an amplifier and an accelerator. It can make reporting more efficient, but it also increases scrutiny…
Is AI good or bad for sustainability reporting? Could it increase greenwashing risk?
I think it raises the bar, frankly. It should help companies improve some of their reporting processes, but it also makes it clear that if you don’t take control of producing high-quality data, someone else will probably generate an assessment of your performance — and then you’ll have to explain it.
So I see AI as both an amplifier and an accelerator. It can make reporting more efficient, but it also increases scrutiny and expectations around the quality and credibility of the information companies disclose.
I also think we all need to be part of the conversation about what constitutes credible information. In some ways, the greenwashing era predates the current focus on AI, but it already pushed us back to first principles. It was a reminder that credibility matters above all else.
The credibility of data is essential — not only for companies to make better decisions and manage performance, but also for investors, policymakers and other stakeholders who rely on decision-useful information. AI doesn’t change that fundamental requirement; if anything, it makes it even more important.
But who really reads sustainability reports?
Well, I think we need to start with the value proposition of reporting. Reporting is a means to an end; it’s not an end in itself. We need to think about the information infrastructure that reporting represents. It’s about providing decision-useful data, and first and foremost, that’s for the company itself.
Companies need to transform. They need to be part of the low carbon transition, have a transition plan and a pathway forward. They need to understand their social impacts, how resources are affected by their operations and supply chains. That information helps companies identify the actions they need to take, so management can make decisions that make the business more resilient, more attractive for financing and ultimately more future-fit.
Another important audience is investors. They may start with financial reports, but they will use any relevant data that is available. I’ve never met an investor who wants less information. They build their own models, rely on data providers, and ESG ratings and scores continue to matter. GRI data feeds into that ecosystem; without it, an important part of the picture is missing.
Finally, I think this is an area where we still have work to do, and where technology can help: translating sustainability data into insights that are useful for policymakers. As mandatory reporting expands in some parts of the world, we need to better understand how that information can be used to incentivise positive behaviour, and policy has an important role to play in that.
